Category: Student Hacks

The questions students SHOULD be asking themselves

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Students with executive function challenges benefit from being taught directly about strategies for school and life success then implementing them for a looong time. After many years of working with these kids, there are definitely a handful of ESSENTIAL questions they SHOULD be asking themselves on a daily basis in order to effectively track the systems they need to be maintaining. When students DON’T learn to ask these questions, things fall apart, they become more disorganized, they end up with a bunch of missing and late work, grades fall and stress goes up for everyone. This video dives into some specific questions to ask and why they are so important. Very best, Seth Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth

Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them ASAP, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

Hey parents, teachers, and students. What’s up? My name is Seth. I’m an executive function coach in Boulder, Colorado and I help struggling students navigate this thing called education. I’m going to talk a little bit today about this sheet that I use in my office quite a bit and I did an extensive video on this and why it’s so important.
So basically I created the sheet after years and years and years of asking students the exact same question. And the reason I created that sheet is that these are the questions that students need to be asking themselves. However, if your child, if you’re a teacher, if your students, who struggle with executive function, or if you are a student who is trying to figure out how to navigate this thing called school on your own, you want to be asking the right questions. These are the questions you are going to need to be asking yourself on a daily basis. Now with most successful students, this comes relatively easy to them again. Why? These students who are naturally organized naturally have relatively good executive functions. They ask these questions more or less automatically and they think through these things in order to make sure that no stone goes unturned, that they are really asking the right questions to make sure that they’re on top of what needs to happen. The students that I work with that struggle with executive function tend to have a lot of missing or incomplete work, zeros, test corrections, and things like that and they missed details and they might have homework that they just forgot to turn in that they actually did. They may have forgotten to turn it in with their name on and got no credit etcetera. Either way, they tend to miss details, but basically what does she does is it breaks down the questions that I want students to be asking on a regular basis. I’m only going to focus on one part of the sheet. Basically, when my kids first come in and they’re making a plan for the evening in an ideal situation, they’re going to think through it just like you and I do as adults, we think through our day, “What do I have to do today?” They get home from school. They should be thinking, “What do I have to do tonight?” Obviously kids are with executive function are not necessarily thinking what they have to do that night. Anyhow, I start off by asking, “What’s your number one priority?” This is a very good question asking to ask for these classes. Any makeup work? Then ask if they have any long-term things they should be working on. Then I have the ‘should’ section and that’s what I’m going to talk about right now. In this section you should say, “Hey, do you have any homework?” They’ll say, “I’m all done, finished it all in school. Nope. I’m sure I don’t have anything,” and they really believe they don’t have anything to do but they’re not understanding that there are other things that they should be doing on a regular basis that other students do naturally, but these students often don’t do it at all. What happens is they end up in the big ‘dip’ and they end up spending the rest of the semester trying to swim upstream and dig themselves out of holes. So what are the questions? I will put them on my blog so that you can cut and paste them and make a print out if you want. But basically, the questions that I ask my students all the time is this: “Hey, what do you have to do tonight?” They might say, “Just math, that’s it. Yep. That’s it. No, everything else good. Yep. Everything else. Good. Respond with, “Okay, well should you check your portals tonight?” Oftentimes what schools do is this is a mess. I might have a student who has a portal called Infinite Campus, Google Classroom, and Schoology. For example, I might have kids with multiple portals, or they may have one teacher that has their own website where they post up. It is a mess, a logistical nightmare for kids who struggle with executive function. It is very difficult for them to know what they need to stay on top of it, to even know where to go. So I ask, “Should we check your portals tonight?” And when I do that, I thoroughly check them. For example, when we check the Grade Portal, my students are often looking at them, “I have an 82 in this class,” and I say, “I don’t care that you have an 82, let’s look at the details because that’s where it shows the missing and incomplete work, zeros, and the things that you need to know.” That’s where we see patterns. That’s where we can see, “Oh, this kid has an A, they’re getting all their homework turned in and that’s why they have the A. But all of their quizzes and tests are lower scores.” So we know it gives us the information we need to work on study skills, for example. Question 1. “Should we look at the portals tonight?” Question 2. “Should we deal with your inbox tonight?” A lot of times these students are not looking at their inbox, ever. They don’t reply to emails that legitimately require a reply. If they do reply to the email, they often do it in a short way where they’re not capitalizing, they’re not indenting, or they’re not showing that they know how to write a letter. They don’t have to be long, but they at least should be courteous. And should they should show that they know how to actually communicate via writing in a quick email. They often have a lot of spam. They often have a lot of like things that they’ve subscribed to where they have millions of things that never opened all these things. So should we deal with the inbox tonight? Question 3. Planner. “Should we deal with updating the planner?” In an ideal world, every day your child is crossing off for checking off each day and all of the things that they’ve done that day. So that by the end of the day you can look in a month, for example, and see a bunch of crossed tasks in the days because they are regularly checking it out. These kids don’t do that. So should we update your planner? And now it’s in your planner. It isn’t just getting it up to date for what you can cross off, but it’s also asking if you need to backwards plan. Do you have a project coming up where you need to backwards plan? And you need to be working on that and also getting in your planner give extracurricular activity. And upcoming homework. What you have to do tomorrow is that in the planner. So should use the update the planner question. Question 4. Should we reset your backpack? I do this every week or two with all of my students. We take everything out of the pack. We could reorganize all the folders. We organize all the pockets and we organize all the school supplies. We organize the entire backpack and what do you know because it starts with executive function. You know homework that was supposed to be done today, or that got lost in the backpack. Papers that are in the wrong folders, papers ready to be recycled, things like that. We need to reset the backpack. Question 5. Is there any makeup work? I know I mentioned this earlier in this video, but I will ask this question, should I work on makeup work because these, kids when you say, “Do you have any homework,” they’re thinking about “no, I don’t have anything to do today or these are the things I have to do today.” But if they have missing or makeup work that needs to be done, that’s often not on their radar, okay. “Do you have makeup work that you’re forgetting about?” Question 6. This is a very very powerful question. “Are you forgetting anything?” When I ask the student if they’re forgetting anything, my goal is that I see them take a moment and maybe look around thinking about it and seriously contemplate, “Am I forgetting anything?” This is a very powerful question and often times a student will say, “Oh, yeah. I’m forgetting blah blah blah.” They’re forgetting the thing. And so it’s a great question that helps capture the things that we have missed. So my goal when working with these students is to catch all the details and to help with executive function a lot of things. The questions I just mentioned are very related to Executive function directly or indirectly. So again, here are the questions you should ask. “Hey, what’s up Japanese homework tonight? Okay, you know we go through the the deal but should you check your portals tonight? Should you deal with your inboxes tonight? Should you deal with your planner tonight and update it thoroughly. Should you reset your backpack and reorganize yourself tonight? Do you have makeup work that you should be worth? And did you forget anything?” That’s all I have for you. Again, my name is Seth Perler, I’m an executive function coach based out of Boulder, Colorado. I hope you’re having a great day. And if you like my work, please share it with somebody today. And also if you are on YouTube, you can go ahead and give me a thumbs up and a comment if you want tell me what you think about this, if there are questions that I’m forgetting that I should be asking students. Should you be doing this tonight so that they are covering all the bases are there. Is there anything that I’m leaving out and what do you guys do to deal with us? All right. I will see you soon. Take care.  

3 school PLANNER myths and what to do instead

Please CLICK above to share. In this video, I’ll explain 3 big myths about planners/calendars/agendas and how adults try to help students use them. Then I’ll give you guidance on what really matters when choosing the right planner for a student who struggles with planning.
Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you — Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

Parents in this video. I’m going to talk to you in teachers. I’m going to talk to you about three myths that people often have about planners calendars and agendas. So the first men tell by the way, my name is sepis up for what I comment executive function coach out of Boulder Colorado and I will work with students who struggle with this thing called education in and help them learn how to better navigate it and the first planner meth that I’m going to talk to you about. Is that giving a kid a planter is enough. So there’s this myth without all that if we just give them the right planner that that’s good enough, but the fact is that these skills the skills of learning how to plan the skills of using a planner eat to effectively track and manage the tasks and responsibilities that a human being has the skills that are required to do that are enormous. There are a lot of microscopes that are involved in this process and I think that what happens is that kids usually get Planters and play. Sixth grade, that’s usually when they’re first given them by the school or the parents and I think that would happens is that at that time we give these planters out in a lot of the kids in 5th or 6th grade do well with Planters. They’re giving them to give him a little bit of guidance and they can run with it. And then you have these other kids were giving the planners and they like, what do you want me to do with this isn’t fun not only is enough fun, but I don’t know what you want me to do with us. And so the idea is that if we give it to you and give you a little guidance since they use it that you’re going to use it while I want to dispel the Smiths. So what I think is happening here is that the kids who are naturally pretty decent using them. They actually have been building on these microscopes for years and first grade second grade third grade fourth grade by the time they’re in 5th and 6th grade and they’ve built a lot of decent executive functioning planning skills there more linear thinkers weather that’s by nature nurture. I am not getting into that but they have better executive function skills. They are more linear Arthur Morris. Sequential there more process thinkers. Are there more detail oriented people and so they take to this stuff more easily. They look at a player and they say and you give him a little guidance that makes my life easier, but the kids who haven’t been consciously or intentionally building the skills over the years and the more free-spirited big picture of global thinker right brain, these type of kids who don’t have great executive function. They get the planner and they say I look at my shoulders watch. Why why what what am I supposed to do? I can’t attract all the things you’re telling me to do. It’s just overwhelming to them all of the skills that are involved in this. So again myth number one is that giving them a planter is enough. It’s not enough. He’s a very high level skills it have to be taught in and takes years to teach and for the kids who haven’t been taught that directly we need to teach that number two. Nip number to is one-size-fits-all. You’ll see a middle school with 1,500 kids. They buy boxes of these Planters. They get them the teachers get them. They take him to the classrooms. They pass them out and you got 1500 middle schoolers in a middle school with the exact same plan or is it one-size-fits-all is the bat planter is banned all be off for all of them. These Planters have the school handbook in the front. They have the hall pass in the back there the periodic table, only misspelled words bunch of crap. They don’t need in the planner and they will have two or three pages in the front of it that says how to use a planner and then the teacher might give a little bit of guidance and say, okay pull out your planner blah blah, but that’s not enough. So anyhow, one-size-fits-all is myth number to one size does not fit off. There’s another place where I see the one-size-fits-all meth and that is where somebody researches planners. What’s the best planner you get back a bunch of gov results on the internet as to what’s the best planner you read the reviews? You see all these people that are crazy about this planner the person who designed the planner has written a book about the plant. Have the courts about the planner in and everything’s the planner. It’s the coolest thing in the world in the people who write the reviews The Five Star reviews. They love it will guess what? They’re the people use it if people use the one-star reviews probably while there probably aren’t many of them because they’re not using it. They don’t have the experience to say I’m going to give this one sat there just aren’t many people who do that. So you got to really think about why are these reviews here? Now? Those Planters are often good for people with decent executive function already who are willing to take the time to learn the methodology and the intention behind that particular planter design again, there is no one-size-fits-all many players can be good for many different people people use those Planters. Well are using the skills of planning. They’ve just giving you a device that helps you use those skills fairly well and you adapt somewhat your personality and style to these Planters. They’ve given you a A jumping off point and some guidance around how to do that. But the these for people who plan decently well and want to spend the time to refine that stuff. They’re going to love these planners your kid if they struggle with executive function is not going to spend that much time on it, especially independently learning how to do it. It’s number to one-size-fits-all number three planners. Don’t work for my kid really. It’s more planners. Don’t work for me. You really hear this myth more for a kid. Yeah planners. Don’t work for me. Yeah, I don’t like planets. I hate planners planners planners just don’t work the Planters not working. It’s that the kid isn’t working the planner. Now as I said before they don’t know how to so it’s like giving them this Guitar. Let’s say you’ve never played guitar before and giving you this guitar that has a lot of complex Q’s me there’s a phone call that has a lot of complicated things going on. You have to know how to change to know how to clean it with a proper cleaning stuff. You have to know how to change the pickup. To change the volume at a change of tone which pickups to gives you what sound what that ass holes for why those dots are there white spots. Are there do you like big fat small fretz flat frats what you are so many complicated things with this instrument and a planner is a very complicated instrument that helps us track our responsibilities in our tasks effectively. So when we when it gets as they just don’t work for me, they’re really saying I don’t have the foundation of knowledge that I need the complex skill set to use this incredible tool. You’re giving me and you’re giving it to me and saying hey go make an amazing song with this like with a guitar, but you’ve never played it before and you’re like what in the world are you talking about? And that’s what we do to kids are so those are the three big myths that I wanted to talk about now. I’m not just going to leave you hanging in there. I’m going to tell you now. How do you pick the right planner? Stop just told you some of these big mess because I don’t want you just thinking that if your kids I was with executive function you give him my planter and they’re going to be okay. Now, we have to really help them learn the skills. But you do have to get one now. I can’t go too deep into it in this video. I’ve already been talking for 7 minutes, but I will tell you this but he kid will do when you go into the office or online or whatever you say what plant or do you want their filter that they’re picking is like if I were to go into a guitar store somebody’s ever play guitar and say which one do you want? They might pick the one that’s their favorite color or that the shape looks cool or that reminds them of their favorite Rockstar. They’re not looking at how is this going to perform and they need to look with planters that how am I going to be able to use this to plant now? How are you the parents going to help them choose that? If they don’t have the background knowledge, what we’re going to do is you’re going to open up dialogue. So they’re going to say it’s a lot of times kids will be like, oh, yeah that one I don’t like the way that one looks. I don’t want my friends to judge me when they see the way that one love, you know, they’re thinking thoughts like this. That one looks cool. That one goes under the radar. I’m not going to stand out with that one. I liked it that one small. I like that one’s bit smaller. Easier to carry a big it’s easier to find like people have all their thoughts what your child is not thinking is how am I going to use this to plan and effectively track my tasks and responsibilities in my life to make my life easier. That’s not what they’re thinking. That’s the dialogue you want to have so they look at a planner and you say what do you think of this one? They say no and you say why? Nice a while because of blah blah blah and if their answer doesn’t really have to do with planning then I want you to press them and say well what about if this was yours how would you use this to plan and they would say whatever they would say and then you look in the next one. How would you use this one to plan how that’s the question the dialogue you want to be having it. How would you use this to check homework? How would you use this one to check test? How would you use this one to check project? If you parents go into the store and you’re talking about how they’re going to use this to effectively manage and track their responsibilities and tasks. That’s what you want to be doing. Now that mean you’re going to walk out of there with the perfect planner know your kid may be using it for two weeks. And you see that it’s not working again. Does that mean that they’re not wear and maybe means they’re not working at you you really windy really need to spend a lot of time with them in the first 6 weeks of school developing planets feels a lot of times the middle school, you know, the teachers will hand out a planner and they open your planner write this in it and it’s just it’s not teaching the skills and again for the kids who seem to pick it up naturally, you know, they seem to be working harder while they’re not they’ve been working for years that they have the skills. Your good is actually working really hard to figure out what the heck is going on with us. So anyhow, I hope that that helps you can sign up for my weekly updates except for what I come and August 23rd 2019. We have it executive function summit.com. I’ll leave a link below cuz I can’t function simon.com its executive function Summit for you parents I’ve got 23 experts from all over the place who are going to share all of their expertise about executive function with you for free for 3 Days starting August 23rd. I register free executive function Summit Please share my work. Please share the summit with people if you like it and please if you like this give it a thumbs up that helps me on YouTube and subscribe to my site subscribe on YouTube. Whatever you want to do this for me. If this is helpful to you, please support my work. Alrighty, then I will see you next Sunday.

Quizlet? Really!?

If you like my work, Please *CLICK* above to share. Thanks! -Seth Parents, teachers & students: I’ve worked with a lot of students who use quizlet or other online flashcard programs. The result? It seems like you’re doing something but it’s an incredibly ineffective way to learn. Here I teach why and what students can do instead. If you like my work, Please *CLICK* below to share. Thanks! -Seth

SPRING BREAK. Do this. 7 easy things.

Please CLICK above to share. Hey parents (teachers, you might like this one too), Here’s a quick video I made to break down some of the things you might want to keep in mind as your child enters spring break. As we know, this is an interesting time of year because the end of the year comes up QUICK, and it’s easy for students to fall further behind. When kids get too far behind and they can’t recover from it, they have to retake classes and deal with other consequences. This video should help!
Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you — Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

What’s up, everybody? I’m a little bit thick hair. But spring break is right around the corner again. I got 7 ideas for you. That’ll help your child. Number one understand that they do need a break and they have been going all school year. They legitimately need some time off. I need time to not think about school to really be free to really let loose really relaxed really decompressed really gather themselves again, and to be ready for the final push the school year. Now the final push the school year is pretty hard because usually in April and May there really aren’t any 3 or 4 day weekends or any breaks or anything. It’s a very strong push for most kids. So like I said that you really need this break bad to don’t talk with your kid about school during spring break, except you have to talk to your kids about school over spring break, but don’t just randomly bring it up. All the time is what I’m trying to say, like really intentionally think about when you’re going to talk about it and I do want you to have a heart-to-heart with them. I want you to sit down with them talk about school talk about life like have a time where you really honor it talk it. The final push of the school year, but then when it’s done be done. Okay, if you guys have to work on school stuff during break you no talk about it then but don’t let it linger and and be sprinkled all throughout break. Let them have break let them know when you’re going to have a heavy talk about school and then when it’s done, let it be done and then when you revisit it and give them a warning so that they know it’s coming. So the intention is really that they’re mine can be free. Also the emotional aspect as I always say is so so so important 3 understand the pattern and you got understand how it spring break factors into it in the spring semester students to start with executive function start off the semester strong usually and then a few weeks then things start to fall apart, but it’s hard to see until between week 6 and weeks 8 and then usually something happens when parents realized only. Oh my gosh things are falling apart and then you spend the rest of the semester trying to swim upstream your child’s trying to dig themselves that holes trying to put out fires and trying to catch up on Makeup were trying to manage their current work trying to do their final projects test papers and reading assignments. And then the end of the semester comes up so fast and what did the pattern of course there are consequences in this case when the school year’s over if your child fails classes, they will have to either take summer school or do retakes in the fall or whatever the consequences are but the consequences are not pretty and one of the problems is that kids who struggle with executive function are not realistic about the time and energy that is required in order for them to manage what they have to do for the rest of the semester. Now this is complicated in spring because motivation tanks because of spring fever the weather gets nice all the kids get out this giant burst of energy and they’re even less motivated to to do the school work. Plus they have their normal workload. Plus they have their swimming Upstream workload makeup work. Plus they have their upcoming giant papers exams reading assignments and projects. So with that decrease motivation be this is all they have to manage number for Understand that your child probably won’t get anything done during spring break it is so interesting how we myself included. We think though this is a break your child think so I’ll get caught up on all this work or you think on my child’s going to get caught up on others for the reality of the situation is that is very rare for people to get much done during spring break 5, your child probably does have a lot of makeup work to do and probably a lot of current work to do and prep work to do for the upcoming stuff. So if you are planning on having your child work over break if that’s really the best thing for them. You want to plan it and large chunks of time. You don’t want them to do a little bit every day, please don’t do that. That is not right thing to do a half hour everyday. They’re not even getting anything done in half hour the Burl even getting started. They have to get into the study mode. So I recommend choosing couple days where you choose the two to three-hour large block of time for them to really work on stuff and along with that. I really recommend that you plan your own work with them so Yuko work with During that time so you can work on your own stop your taxes your bills or whatever projects you have going 6 and this point you probably want to email the teachers and say hey what’s coming down the pike? I want to get clarity. Do we have any papers? We have any projects. We have any large reading assignments. Do we have any exams coming up? Is there going to be a rubric? Is there going to be a study guide etcetera? You want to get clarity from the teachers what’s coming up? Because chances are your child is not going to have the clarity you need finally number 7 stay on it. This is the final stretch do not give up your child is going to send you leave me alone. I got this stop bugging me you’re annoying whatever your child says to you to get you to leave him alone. You can leave them alone sometimes but you have to stay on top of the stay on top of looking at their grades down top of getting Clarity from the teacher stay on top of whatever you need to even though they’re going to be resisting your house. Going to want your help. You need to stay on top of this because the consequences are big With that I do. Hope you have a restful awesome fun spring break where you can really enjoy quality time with your child, and I will see you soon. Remember if you like this video, please subscribe on YouTube. Give it a thumbs up, and please share my work with somebody. Have a great day.

7 Ways to help your child start the NEW YEAR off right in school

Screen Shot 2017-01-04 at 1.04.55 PMFor most students, second semester starts back up in the first week of January. Check out the ideas below and use what works for you. Let me know how it goes. Happy 2017, Seth
 
  1. Minimize stuff – I usually recommend to my families that they do a serious downsizing of “stuff” twice a year (winter and summer). Pick a weekend in January and use it to get rid of all of the excess “stuff” you have. For example, you and your child might go through all clothes, keeping only the things that they/you actually wear. You might go through books, toys, sporting goods, etc.. Obviously, you’ll also want to go through all school related stuff and recycle irrelevant items. You see, the more stuff your child has, the more they (or you) have to maintain, which takes time and energy. Choose wisely and consider the most important ways for you to “spend” your time and energy.
  2. Overhaul backpack – See my video on this here, but basically, empty the backpack of every single thing (crumbs and all). Reorganize every single remaining item so your child can start the semester off with a clean slate, a backpack that is organized and set up for success. Yes, involve them in this process as much as possible. The more ownership they take, the better.
  3. Frontload the planner – Google “(your school’s name) annual calendar” and print a couple of copies of this calendar. Get ALL relevant information for the entire semester into the planner now. Hilight all days off. Get all other relevant information into the calendar: Consider doctors, dentists, therapists, extra curriculars, birthdays, travel, or anything else that can be frontloaded into the planner. Check teacher websites or syllabi for dates of exams, projects, papers, etc.. Finally, tear out all irrelevant pages from the planner (students love this aspect of streamlining the planner because it’s tangible).
  4. Put a “weekly overhaul” on the calendar for the entire semester. Today. – Look, it takes time to build good habits, there isn’t a magic bullet. Successful students are good at maintaining their systems, struggling students are not. So to build this “muscle” these students benefit from regular opportunities to overhaul their systems. This generally means taking an hour a week to thoroughly update the planner, thoroughly overhaul the backpack, thoroughly check the details of online grades, thoroughly check teacher updates on websites, and emailing teachers for clarifications. I recommend Sunday evenings, but do whatever works. Now put it in the calendars!
  5. Reset the SSS – Students need a “Sacred” Space to Study just as adults need sacred spaces to do our focused work. Unfortunately, most kids have never been guided through the process of designing a customized space for focused work. Take time to intentionally reorganize their study area, minimizing distractions and optimizing it for focused work. Again, the more involved they are in this process, the better.
  6. Take time to hold space and connect – Perhaps one of the most powerful tools I use with my students is that I spend a great deal of time “holding space” for them. When I do this, my students are able to open up with more honesty and clarity than at any other time. But it’s not an easy skill to learn. My guess is that adults are often moving so fast that they forget how to slow down enough to hold space. One way to hold space for your child is to take time every week to be fully present with them, and to create an emotionally safe experience for them to express their thought and feelings. This means no cell phones, laptops, tvs, people running around, chaos, etc.. In other words, no distractions. This means listening without judgement, which is challenging for parents. Instead of reacting how you normally do to what your child says, try to pause for 3 very long seconds and see if they have more to say. And instead of giving advice or bestowing your wisdom upon them when they didn’t ask for it, simply say, “tell me more” or, “I’m listening, go on.” Try not to nod in agreement or shake your head in disapproval, just listen with an open and curious heart. Just be there, hold a safe space. Trust that their own reflection will pay off in the long run, and be patient. This only scratches the surface, but try cultivating this practice on a regular basis.
  7. Plan quality time – Kids grow up fast, so don’t miss it. Quality time with your child is the most important thing as far as I’m concerned, and it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day that we miss out on too many of these opportunities. So plan these experiences now. Literally take time to sit with your calendar and plan fun, connected time. Block out time to do things where you connect meaningfully with your child. Maybe you have movie nights once a month, plan family dates, sporting events, game nights, trips, staycations. Maybe you plan times to teach your kids what you learned from your elders, family recipes, family stories, family arts, etc.. Ask your child what they like to do with you, really listen and then plan that. Just plan things that are fun (without the cell phones interrupting, of course). Put them into your calendar now!
Have other ideas? Please share below so others can learn from your experiences.

One BIG Secret to Helping Kids Grow

We often try in vain to “help” our kids by…
  • Lecturing
  • Logic
  • Reason
  • Being rational
  • “Talking some sense into them”
But once they feel “threatened”, it’s not getting through. It’s so easy for us, as adults, to see what “needs to be done”. We can see so clearly that if they just do x, y and z, that they would make things so much easier on themselves.  We just don’t understand why they don’t take these simple actions and it’s infuriating. So what works? Believe it or not, one of the BIGGEST keys to helping kids change is empowering growth in millimeters. It’s the small baby steps that work. Many tiny steps add together to create big change, and it requires a ton of time, effort and patience. A TON. Way more than you think it should! There are two things my father likes to say that are apropos.
  • “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” and…
  • “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
Now go help your child move a millimeter, because it’s all that matters.

PARENTS, Are Apps For Students Really Worth It?

Please CLICK above to share. Parents, I went on a bit of a rant here, but it ends well! Enjoy. Below is the text from the email that inspired this video…
I’ve reached a peak frustration level with my 2e student. I have attended many parent seminars / conferences / talks / meetings (you get the picture) and after attending yet another last night and leaving frustrated, I thought I’d pose a question: If ALL the experts agree that kids should have limited screen time (especially kids with ADHD), why then does every bit of advice come with yet another app or website to introduce to your kid?” – Andrea

Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

Hey, what’s up everybody? Welcome. It’s at. Perler.com. And I have a letter here from a parent that I want to go over with you. She says this is Andrea and she says I have reached Peak frustration level with my to East student and Touhy for those who don’t know means twice exceptional sun exceptionality is basically if you think about the bell curve, it’s either side of the bell curve. It could be exceptionality could be gifted and exceptional. It could be some sort of a disability Asperger’s autism. Dyslexia ADHD sensory issues. Any any type of quote disability you can think of so, you’re two evenings gifted and a star goes with some sort of disability, but this mom says I’ve reached a peak frustration level. And then it says I’ve attended many parent seminars conferences talks meetings, you get the picture and after attending yet another one last night and leaving frustrated. I thought I’d ask you this question. If all the experts agree that kids should have limited screen time, and I absolutely agree with that. I think it can be toxic to a lot of students and very difficult to change especially when they get into Middle School. If experts agree that they should have limited screen time, especially kids with ADHD. She says why then does every bit of advice how much yet another app or website to introduce to your kid? Okay. So here is my cynical yet honest answer. Why do they always recommend more apps or websites? Why the online learning when the curriculum for most of the well, really all the online courses I’ve ever worked with my students have been pretty much horrible. They often time are very poorly written very difficult to understand. They’re very choppy to go through there not motivating. It’s basically you do this thing. You answer these questions online. You get it done. There’s no real support usually on these things. And then you have all these apps that are supposed to help and all this noise noise noise all these things that so why are these people pushing this stuff? So if your parent and you go to some parent meeting and you here, oh, this is the latest and greatest new app for this or that Why are they telling you this? Okay, if we know that there’s evidence that shows that a lot of the stuff really. I mean kids they’re not just going to use the after going to be distracted by other things by Minecraft by Facebook buy whatever things they’re addicted to or consumed with online. They’re not just going to stay on that helpful app usually case oyyy well two main reasons. I came up with Monday. people make money After about money their Affiliates, and I’m sorry to be cynical and I’m not trying to be a jerk and you may be watching this and you may be someone who has developed a great app for kids that really helps will hey some apps to help and I thank you. Thank you very much. I’m glad you’re out there doing what you’re doing. Okay, there are some great apps that can help with certain things if they’re used properly right by speaking. If you’re going to these things there they’re making money off of it in some way or another now. I’m going to be cynical little bit more about it. She’s got a really think about this what’s going on their educational system. Okay, so we’re seeing what’s going on with politics today right? There is just some really wacky stuff going on. And as far as education, which is tied to politics politicians are making a lot of decisions about education. And what happens is we have a system where we have test And the tests are designed to look at the school or look at a child or look at a teacher gather data to determine the success of that school teacher or child. Okay. No do the test really show what they claim to show. I don’t think so. I’m not a fan of tests. They really bother me. They heard a lot of kids and I’m I’m I’m passionate about this today because I’ve watched so many of my kids is so stressed out by this time watch test interfere with three weeks of school every school. You’re not even counting all the prep time that teachers put into the test and all the money in blah blah blah. What what about test? Let’s look at Miss Pearson is an 8 billion billion dollar company, one of the biggest testing companies in the world. These people are making money now test you got to do well on the tests. So what do you need? Well, you need good. Text books textbooks. Have you ever seen a college textbook sell for $180? Like what what book cost $180 and then it’s the 17th edition of the textbook and the 16th Edition in the 15th. And the fifth edition cost on sale $150. And then what do they give the students for those textbooks $22 or whatever. I mean, it’s it’s a racket. Okay, the textbook companies are making big big big big big big big big money. And then of course you have if you want to do well on tests, you have to have a great textbooks. You also have to have curriculum. So there are all these curriculum manufacturers that sell textbooks in that sell different curriculum packages. So as a teacher being in schools, I seen a lot of these crackling manufacturers will bring in the huge boxes display boxes beautiful boxes design with all these different books and and all these supplemental materials and DVDs and all this stuff in this beautiful box. If you never seen one you should see it. It’s a sight to behold. There’s a thousand-dollar box there in and teachers can look at in principles can look at and say we’re going to teach teachers how to be creative. It’s not valued because we want them that doesn’t help the bottom line, right? We don’t teach teachers how to create a creatively differentiated curriculum how to think on their own that’s not encouraged how to make decisions that are outside the box. We don’t want to disturb the status quo. We want kids to be in the Box fit in the Box. Perform on the test so that the school looks good blah blah blah. My cynicism for why the apps is the same reason for all this stuff. It comes down to that somebody’s property do not get me wrong. There are phenomenal teachers phenomenal administrators phenomenal therapist phenomenal people who are involved with kid to help your kids. Who care about your kid. Those are the people you really want to hold on to you want to get your kids around them because they’re really invest in your kids because they love being of service to humanity through serving kids and helping them grow and have amazing lives. They’re not concerned with the bottom line or they may be by there. It is not their focus their focus is your kid. Okay, so they’re amazing people out there. So my cynicism does taking to count that are those amazing people. We need them. We need to reward them. We need to inspire them help them. Push them give them what they need to survive are cats. Okay, but my opinion is why money number to the number to reason why so many apps are pushed. It’s easy. It’s easy to stand on a stage and say hey if you use this out, this is great for kids. Here’s a list of 70 things that are going to help your kids blah blah blah blah. If you follow my blog if you watch my videos, if you look at what I’m saying fact is that helping kids make real change that helps their life and that helps them to launch a great future and have a great childhood at the same time is not easy. It is not we want why apps because we want Magic Bullets. We wanted to be easy. We want we want fairy dust and unicorns and and we want something magical that’s going to help us with our kids so that we can be assured that they’re going to have a great future and that they’re getting what they need. And if we just listen to these people and we just listen to the apps and we just do this. And if you’re a good enough parent, you’ll buy this stuff and you buy into this crap. And your kids will be okay. Working with these kids is not easy. Takes time. Patience effort persistence you want to change your kids habit. You can’t do it in a week. You’re trying to really change your consistency. For example at the parents instead of strong boundary about something. It’s going to take you a good six to eight weeks with your kid before they even believe you that the boundary really exist. You have to be so firm and consistent and loving and kind. This stuff is not easy. Parenting is not easy teaching is not easy, but especially helping a 2E child who has very very extreme extremes. That’s really challenging and it does require a lot of patience lot of time all this stuff. So with apps and new websites new this and that they may be helpful. They may serve a purpose. But they also may be helping somebody profit and that in profiting they may want you to believe that this isn’t easy way out. This is something that’s not going to require a lot of aspirin if you just do it. You’ll be okay. So what I’m here to tell you is that that’s not the truth. The truth is is that with consistency with understanding executive function with having outside the box solutions for your kid with keeping the big picture in mind, which is their future and their happiness with certain things. You can help your child transform their challenges and get to a place where they are able to navigate education navigate life and created great future. Absolutely positively, so I just really want to encourage you just want to make that short video to respond to that. Thank you so much for your email, and I hope that helps I will see you soon. Take care.

Students: Are You Going Through “The Dip” Again? [Video]

“The Dip” is a completely predictable pattern for many outside-the-box students. Here’s how it goes:
  1. The semester starts strong. Organized, optimistic, ready.
  2. Classes seem to go well for a couple of weeks.
  3. A couple of things go wrong, but no cause for alarm. Maybe you forgot to study for a couple of quizzes, forgot to do some reading, forgot to do a couple of assignments.
  4. BAM! 6-8 weeks into the semester, everything suddenly falls a-p-a-r-t. Perhaps teachers just updated a bunch of grades and you have a bunch of 0s or late work. Maybe there was a daunting progress report or conferences that didn’t go well. Either way, grades took a nosedive!
  5. You spend the rest of the semester struggling to swim upstream or dig yourself out of a pit.
The semester ends in one of three ways, and this video will give you ways to make sure you pull out of the nosedive and end up with the best outcome possible. Good luck, you’ve got this! — Seth Pull out of a nosedive
🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Subscribe, like & comment to support my work. 👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 💚 Give: Love my work and want to donate? 🙏 Thanks! — Seth

Video transcript:

Hey, what’s up? What’s up? What’s up for? What I, this video is for you students. This is general for middle high school and college students. And this is about the dip and this is something that I talk a lot about right now. It’s the end of February and that means that it’s basically close to the middle of the semester of second semester in a school year and often times at this point in time students go through the debt. Usually six to eight weeks into any given semester students who are not the best student go go through the dip and what the dip is is the dep is this time when you start off your semester and everything is going strong and then a few weeks into the semester things start to get a little bit weird things might be really high really low really high. I mean things to start to get all over the place. The thing is is that at the beginning of the semester you start off strong you have all A’s and B’s you’re getting everything in generally if you’re watching this video. You’re you’re probably a good starter. It’s the finishing that’s difficult is to follow through and finishing off the semester. So lot of my students will do really well and then something happens right about here six to eight weeks in teacher start to get a bunch of grades in let’s say that you turn in stuff lay their entering those grades or that they do you have a couple of zeros there a teacher’s or entering a bunch of old grades and all of a sudden Boom the dip happens. Everything goes downhill. You might have a big little dip here come back. Boom. Boom. Boom by the centrally everything falls to Pieces all your A’s and B’s just go boom and turn into C’s D’s and ask it can happen really fast all of a sudden 8 weeks in or right now the end of February if you were to look at your grades today, you might see holy cow you have for a stand to a pluses or some crazy combination score. So this is very very very very, Very, very predictable pattern of question is what do you do about it? Well, there are three things to do about it one. Nothing keep avoiding keep procrastinating keep telling yourself. You don’t feel motivated to keep making excuses stay in the dep avoid avoid avoid and you will end up with low grades at the end because it will you will lend a hand to pull it together. But if you don’t do it, it’s not going to happen automatically next thing, you know, it’s a week before the end of the semester and you try to pull it together, but when the actual report card comes and it’s summertime, it’s too late and you have a bunch of apps you have to retake classes go to summer school or whatever. To you work to dig yourself out of the hole. You start swimming Upstream. You start doing what you can sometimes but you aren’t consistent enough to really pull it together in the end up with a bunch of mid-range gray the bunch of seize or you might have an affinity in a couple days and B’s and C’s sort of your averaging mid-range. And then the third thing that can happen is that you really dig yourself out of the pit You Really Turn Around you like I’m not going to let this happen and that’s why I’m making this video. Now the dip is happening. Now if you address it right now today and you start doing good things for yourself. You will make it much much much easier to end up with all A’s and B’s and with actually not very much effort. It really believe it or not doesn’t require much more effort to get your A’s and B’s then you’re probably putting it already but it does require a few things. I’m going to be a give you a couple of ideas that are going to help you and it is if you want to turn Brown you will not be taking yourself out of a giant hole and you want to not swim upstream the whole rest of the semester and you want to make it much easier on yourself Harrison tips, that will help you number one. Immediately in you’re not going to want to do that. Some of you are not going to want to do this advocate for yourself connect with your teachers. Sit down today. Look at your grades write an email your teacher say hey, what’s up, it’s me, Seth or whoever you are. Look I’m getting a c in your class or D or an F. I want to do while my goal is to get whatever if you want to get in there be telling your goal. My goal is to get whatever and can I meet with you during office hours this week or do you have a suggestion for me or what can I do to bring my grade up? I don’t want to be digging myself out of a hole the Restless Messer be honest connect again many of you are going to want to resist and here’s what you’re going to say. How do I know you’re going to say it? Cuz a lot of my students say it all the time. Well, I’ll just talk to them when I see them in class. Bologna, do not lie to yourself. I have been doing this a long time. I work with all kind of students. I get to students I get the ones that say well, I’ll just talk to him when I see him in class and they don’t then I asked him a couple days later. They say no I forgot but I’ll do it tomorrow then they don’t don’t lie to yourself just do it. And then I get the type of student who says okay Seth. I’ll email them and they email them and trust me at work teachers respect us connect with your teachers now today. Don’t wait just do it till your grades and connect them. It says a lot. To overhaul bring home every single paper from your locker your desk, whatever every book ever gum wrapper everything wrote in your backpack cramp in your backpack. Bring home everything from school every molecule of anything that has to do with school. Bring it home dump it on the floor and overhauling go through all of it for recycle papers. You don’t need archive papers. You may need make a pile of papers you need to either turn in or finish and then turn in and then put the things in the folders that you need to keep in your folders get reorganized completely overhaul your backpack your books and everything reset. It’s like resetting your computer resetting the modem do an overhaul a reset and do that today or tomorrow or the next day like just get everything and get it done and you should probably do that every two weeks by the way from now on through the rest of the school year. Trust me that will help a lot just going through something. Here’s what happens when my students Call everything we start going through the papers looking at stuff and then they say something like this. Oh, that’s where that is. I’ve been looking for that. Yeah. I have a zero on that. I thought I turned it in or something like that. So do the overalls. 3 sacred study space if you’re studying on the couch one day and bad one day at the desk one day of the kitchen table one day stop pick a place and create a place to study that is sacred a place that you do not put junk on you do not mess with you don’t put laundry on it. You don’t put a bunch of things that don’t have anything to school at a place for you to study. You want your brain to associated with studying and not other things when you’re not studying you want to be free. You want to enjoy your life you want to be present for whatever the things are that you enjoy not thinking about school and when you’re thinking about school and studying you want to just do that. Okay, so I see a lot of people who take an hour’s worth of homework and turn it into four hours because they screw around a lot and they don’t have a good safe and study face. So next make a sacred study space a good spot in your house or wherever to study that, you know is distraction-free. Make a routine. You don’t have to follow the routine. That’s the trick of the routine. But if you think that it is best for your brain to focus on homework from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Make a routine post it put it up on the wall. So you remember what routine you wanted to do if it’s good for you to study from 8 to 10 p.m. I don’t care what it is just be honest with yourself and make a routine when you’re not routine you tend to get more discombobulated more forgetful you lose track of details. So just try your best to make everything doesn’t have to be perfect and you don’t even have to always follow it make it consciously make it. finally prioritize look What’s the priority you creating? Awesome future for yourself creating an awesome life for yourself. You are the priority K prioritize delete the stupid video games from your computer throw away the Xbox get rid of the TV. Whatever is distracting you get Facebook off your phone. I don’t care what it is. It’s for you like get rid of things that are not priorities that are distracting you from creating an awesome life now and in the future, there’s a lot of distractions in our world, okay? Prioritize prioritize yourself in and just be like I’m not going to I’m not going to allow that it to interfere with my life and get rid of it. Okay. Last time it played a video game was literally 13 years ago. The reason I don’t play them is because I don’t just play one video game. I sit there and play and then 3 hours later I go where did that three hours ago and during that time and would just one more game just one more games just like look I got rid of them for my life. I don’t want them. They interfere with my life. I don’t have cable TV because I don’t because if I have it I watch it and I don’t really watch I just flipped channels. Like I know myself get to know yourself be very honest or something get rid of the Clutter from your life. Whether it’s Electronics weather toxic people in your life. I don’t care what it is prioritize you and having a great future where you can contribute to the world and bring your skills and your gifts in your awesomeness to the world to do some good. Okay. Get rid of those toxins. All right have an awesome day get to it. You’re probably in the dip right now. Get out of the dip do few things for yourself that’s going to make that happen and have an awesome week. I’ll see you soon.

“He’s not motivated by much of anything”

Here is a set of 3 videos based upon the following email I received from a reader:
Hello Seth,
I have an 11-year old son in 6th grade, a 2E-type boy (in a “GT” program since 3rd grade and also on a 504), who is not motivated by much of anything. When he wants to, he can do great work, but only when he wants. And, it’s never clear what motivates this uptick in more attention to his work. Sometimes, it’s the subject matter, as he definitely has his passions. He’s very much an out-of-the-box thinker. He’s been this way since he was a toddler — not even motivated by potty-training stickers or treats…  🙂  How can I help to “light his fire” without grand bargains? At this point, I sound like a broken record… “Have a great day! Remember, neat and complete!” Part of the problem surely rests with my ability to handle the issue. Argh! Help!  BTW, his twin sister is highly self-motivated, gets straight A’s because of her strong work ethic and did not qualify for the GT program (which is fine by us). We have never and will never compare the two. They have very different learning styles and outlooks. We also do not put a premium on letter grades, but on doing the best that they can. It just comes out differently for each them. So crazy!
If I could wave a magic wand, I’d make my son’s work output and motivation reflect the visions he has articulated for himself in the future: he’s in love with the Air Force Academy and, at this point, wants to be an engineer or a pilot. He’s got big dreams, and of course, as a parent, I just want him to be happy pursuing something he loves.
Thank you!
Videos 1 & 2 are for parents and will help you understand my unconventional perspective on motivation and students. These should give you some great insights. I made video 3 for middle and high schoolers, to give them some of my most important advice on the matter.

Video #1: Unmotivated Students: The Reason WHY (For PARENTS)

Video #2: Unmotivated Students: How to Help (For PARENTS)

Video #3: How to “get motivated” (For STUDENTS)


💚 Give: Love my work and want to donate? 🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Please subscribe, like & comment to support my work. 👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 🙏 Thanks! — Seth

Video Transcripts:

Video #3 for STUDENTS – How to “get motivated” Hey, what’s up? This is Seth Perler.  If you are a middle schooler, a high schooler, or a college student who struggles with motivation, this video is for you. I’m going to give you a couple of tips on how to motivate yourself to do stuff you don’t want to do. I know, I know, I know. Parents bug you, they try to motivate you, your teachers try to motivate you it gets annoying. Everybody’s trying to motivate you. You probably want to be doing certain things and be able to just sit down and do it, but you can’t motivate yourself to do it. You procrastinate, you avoid, you resist, you get in arguments about it, you make excuses. You just don’t want to do something that’s not fun, that seems meaningless, that seems to be a waste of your time. You’re asking yourself, “Why do I have to do this?” So, how do you get over that? Like, how do you motivate yourself? How do you actually get yourself to do these things if you want to be able to start to get in the habit where you’re able to do things you don’t necessarily want to do, but you know you need to do? Or if you know that regardless of what path your life takes you will have to do things you don’t want to do and you have to override that resistance in your brains. So how do you do that? I’m going to give you a quick tip that you can use. This you can use for studying, for homework, for whatever you have to do, for cleaning your bedroom, cleaning your backpack, whatever you have to do. I’m going to give you a quick tip on this. The tip is this. What you want to do is you want to chunk it down. My dad always says, “How do you eat an elephant? You eat an elephant one bite at a time.” You can’t do the whole thing. And what happens with you, is you feel overwhelmed because there are so many tasks nowadays that kids are required to manage. You have so many classes, so much homework, so many tests, so many papers to manage, so many things in your bedroom to manage, so many things to take care of. It is absolutely overwhelming. So what you have to do is you have to chunk it down so that it feels not overwhelming. Okay, there’s two ways to chunk, I’ll explain this to you. Number 1: One way to chunk is by tasks. Let’s say that you have a huge math assignment, you know it’s going to take you a long time and you’re procrastinating. You don’t even want to start on it. In order to chunk it down by task, you’re going to make it into very small pieces. For example, your task might be to do the first five problems only. Or your task might be that you’re only going to do the easiest ones first. Or your task might be that you’ll do half of the math assignment. If you’re writing a paper, your task might be that you’ll just write the outline, and then take a break. Your task might be that you just free-write. Your task might be that you just have a conversation with a friend in the class about the paper and talk through where you’re going to go with your paper. So you’re going to chunk it into tasks that feel manageable. You’re not going to say, “UGHH I have to write that paper. It’s going to take me forever. I don’t even want to start!” You’re going to say instead, “Okay, this paper is a big thing with a small task I can do that feels manageable.” If you have to clean your old bedroom, a task will be to just do the floor, just to do the clothes, just to organize the bookshelf, just to clean your desk. A task is a small thing that will feel manageable to you. You decide how big the task. Number 2: The other thing is time. You can chunk by time, so this is awesome. Let’s say that you have to clean your room. You can just set this timer for 3 minutes, or 5 minutes, or 10 minutes, whatever feels like a reasonable amount of time. It makes noise so it’s very audible, when it’s done it’s done. If you want to clean your room for 5 minutes. You set it and go for 5, when the timer is done, you can quit cleaning your room, or you can keep cleaning your room. A lot of time doing this will just help you trick yourself into actually getting the ball rolling. Same with this, by the way (number 1). The object with both of these is to trick yourself into keeping the train moving. We’re just trying to get through the overwhelm of self-starting, of getting started. A lot of times that’s the biggest problem is just starting it. So you want to chunk it down so you don’t feel overwhelmed. But set the timer for an amount of time that feels manageable. You’re writing a paper? Set it for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, a half-hour, whatever you want. But a manageable amount of time that you can devote to the paper. If you have to work on the math assignment, set it for 5 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, it doesn’t matter. But you want to junk it down to an amount of time that feels comfortable. So again, you chunk by task or time. Task is breaking it into micro-tasks, one big task into many micro-tasks. Pick a micro-task to get the ball rolling. You’ll probably trick yourself into continuing. Same thing with time. Just pick an amount of time that you want to work on something. Set it, and when it’s done, you can keep going or you can stop. But you need to learn to trick yourself. It’s not like the motivation fairy is going to come and give you some motivation fairy dust and you’re going to be like, “Oh, yeah, this is exciting. Now I’m ready to do my homework.” Don’t fool yourself. I’ve heard a lot of students say, “I’m just waiting till I’m ready. Until I feel ready.” You’re not going to feel ready. That’s not reality. They don’t wait for that. Look for strategies that you can trick yourself into getting started and doing things piece-by-piece. Slowly you’ll build your threshold where you can be more focused for longer periods of time, have less distractions, and be a more serious student so that you can create whatever future you want. So that you can follow your dreams and your passions. If you don’t get this down, you’re going to have a lot of trouble following your dreams. Okay, you need to figure out how to do the things that you’re responsible for. All right. I hope that helped you, go try it out. Please CLICK below to share.

2 Essential Tools for Planning Your Writing (Video)

Throughout my 12-year teaching career, writing was, by far, my favorite thing to teach. No, I’m not a great writer myself, but that’s not as important as you might think. What is important is that I fell in love with writing, that I understand it’s immense value and that I have a toolbox for writing that works for me. And those are my goals for all students I work with:
  1. Empower students to fall in love with writing
  2. Genuinely and deeply value the art of writing
  3. Build a reliable toolbox to explore the process of writing
This video explores two small but essential tools in any writer’s toolkit:
  • AudienceWho we are writing for
  • PurposeHow we want to affect them
Please don’t just glance over this concept… Watch this video and soak in the details so you can apply it to your writing or help your child become a better author.

Related posts:

  1. How to use writing process… In plain English! (Video)
  2. FICTION WRITING: Elements of Story (Video)

💚 Give: Love my work and want to donate? 🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Please subscribe, like & comment to support my work. 👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 🙏 Thanks! — Seth

Video transcript:

Hello, this is Seth with SethPerler.com, and I’m here to tell you about audience and purpose. So hello, my author friends and students who are learning to write. Whenever you start a paper, it doesn’t matter if it’s fiction or nonfiction, but whenever you start a paper, there are certain things that you want to do to be getting the paper, to make sure that you have the right foundation or, else your paper is not going to be effective. You may get an A on the paper and I don’t care about grades. I do not care. What I care about is that you are a human being who has important things to tell and it and if your paper stinks and you know that you played the game and got an A, then I don’t care. That doesn’t impress me at all. What impresses me is if you start to build these things in and you can tell your stories effectively. I don’t care if you get an F, if you actually told your story effectively and grew as an author, that’s what I care about. You may not think of yourself as an author, but you are. You can tell your story. I don’t care if you feel like a horrible writer, a lot of people feel like that. It doesn’t matter, trust me. This is an art to be developed. I’m going to teach you some things right now. So when you are starting to write, whether it’s nonfiction or fiction, you want to use the writing process. When you’re starting to write one of the things you’re going to do when you begin your writing is you’re going to plan your writing. That’s also called prewriting. You can prewrite/plan, that might include brainstorming, idea generation, talking to people about the ideas about what you’re writing, making an outline, making the buckets for the parts of your paper. Planning is very important. People often do not spend enough time planning and then their paper goes in a million different directions. It’s the number one thing people neglect to spend enough time on and it’s the number one most important part of the writing process. It is the first part of the writing process. So when you’re writing a paper you want to plan your paper. And then you’re going to draft, revise, edit, and publish your paper and then you’re done. The first thing you’re doing is your planning. Again, when you plan you’re going to be making the buckets, okay. So here’s a bucket. Let’s say that this bucket represents a paragraph, perhaps it’s an introduction, perhaps it’s a conclusion, perhaps it’s a body paragraph, perhaps it’s the chapter, whatever it is. A bucket contains certain ideas that go together. Again, a lot of people’s writing goes in a million different directions. You don’t want your writing to go to a million different directions. You want to have it organized so that the ideas are in containers so that the reader can take what’s within the container and digest it and makes sense of what you’re really trying to say. Now when you are planning your paper, they’re two very very very very important things that I think all authors or writers need to very carefully consider before they start writing. Some people know these things automatically, some people really have to think about it. Those are audience and purpose. Audience: So first, let’s start with the audience. You need to think about who you are speaking to. If you’re writing a paper for a teacher, your audience is the teacher. If you’re writing a paper for a teacher, though, but you’re really writing it for peers that are your age and you’re writing it for them, perhaps you’re writing it for, let’s say, 40-year-old people who are interested in water skiing. That’s your audience. Perhaps it’s teenagers who are interested in rock and roll. Or perhaps it’s elementary school students who want to learn an instrument. Whatever your audience is, you need to really think about who are these people. My suggestion to you is to write out who the audience is. Be as thorough as you can. Just bomb it out in a big paragraph or a bulleted list. Who are you talking to? One of those audiences is going to really be the most important one. What I want you to do when you’re writing is to imagine that you’re speaking to that person, or type of person. So really imagine that person the whole time you’re writing, your imagining that person in the audience. And believe me, the more you focus in on one person as your writing, that you were speaking to them as your writing, the better your paper will be on every single level. Number one, in your plan you must clearly know who the heck your audience is. Who are you speaking to? Purpose: Number two on your plan, you also have to clearly know the purpose of your paper. Students very often do not take the time to identify their purpose. Their teacher tells them the purpose. They think they know the purpose, and they’re just doing what they’re told. You and your own gut need to figure out: What is your purpose? What do you want the reader to do, think, be? What effect do you want your writing to have on them? What’s the purpose of your writing? So I have a book here,  just a random book. This author wrote, Brainstorm – the Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. His audience was probably more or less parents, to explain the teenage brain to parents. And probably also wants teachers to read it and other people. But his purpose is to teach me, or whoever is the reader, whoever’s they audience, to teach about the power and the purpose of the teenage brain. So he really clearly thought about how he wants to educate his reader. You might want to entertain, your purpose might be to entertain, it might be to make them laugh, change their mind about something, take social action, or behave differently, or help themself, or whatever it is. You need to really think about why you are writing this. You have an audience who you want to affect, how do you want to affect them? And that’s your purpose. And so there we go people, this is part of your plan. You really need to consider your audience in your purpose before you start making the buckets of information which and usually end up in your paragraphs or sections of your paper. You want to really have this very clear. I hope you have an awesome day. I’ll see you soon. Take care. Please CLICK below to share.